A Writer’s Life Measured in Movies

David Sedaris on Films He’s Watched (and Rewatched)

“In a way you have to forgive people of a certain age,” the writer David Sedaris said recently. “Like when you watch the movie ‘Into the Wild.’ There were times when I just wanted to take that kid and shake him, but then I thought, he’s 20. That’s what 20-year-olds do, and you just have to forgive him that.”

In 1997, Mr. Sedaris recalled his own youthful hubris in “C.O.G.,” an essay in his collection “Naked,” in which he describes a post-collegiate, Steinbeck-inspired pilgrimage to the Hood River Valley in Oregon to yank apples off trees and learn a little something about fortitude. It’s a smart, drolly told coming-of-age story, both mocking and indulgent of its narrator’s unearned righteousness — of all the humiliations that accompany self-discovery.

With hopes of acquiring the film rights to “C.O.G.,” the writer and director Kyle Patrick Alvarez attended one of Mr. Sedaris’s readings, stood in line to meet him, and then handed over a DVD of his first film, “Easier With Practice.”

Photo

David SedarisCredit
Hugh Hamrick

“I just put it in my bag,” Mr. Sedaris said. “Then I finished my tour, and got back to England, and thought ‘Oh, right, this.’ To tell you the truth, I get a lot of things like that. But I thought, well, I’ll give it a try. And I just really, really liked it. I thought it was such a unique and strangely beautiful little movie.”

He eventually said yes to Mr. Alvarez. “C.O.G.,” which was released on Friday by Screen Media and Focus World, is the first film adaptation of his work. (Mr. Alvarez wrote the script.) “I didn’t at any moment think, ‘Am I saying yes to the wrong person?' ” Mr. Sedaris said.

And when it comes to movies, he knows a thing or two: There were stretches, he said, when he went to see films as often as three times a week, and repeat viewings — sometimes dozens — were not uncommon. On the phone from his home in England, Mr. Sedaris spoke about some of the films he’s watched the most.

“The only thing I ever walked out of was ‘Dr. Doolittle’ with Eddie Murphy,” he said. “It’s remarkable what I’ll sit through — it really is.”

Correction: September 29, 2013

Because of an editing error, an article last Sunday about the favorite films of the writer David Sedaris misidentified the child actor shown with Dylan Baker in an accompanying picture from the Todd Solondz film “Happiness.” He is Evan Silverberg, not Justin Elvin. The article also misidentified the distributor of “C.O.G.,” a new film based on an essay by Mr. Sedaris. It is being released by Screen Media and Focus World, not by Forty Second Productions/Rhino Films. And the article omitted part of the name of the setting for “C.O.G.” It is the Hood River Valley, in Oregon — not the Hood Valley.

A version of this article appears in print on September 22, 2013, on Page AR18 of the New York edition with the headline: A Writer’s Life Measured in Movies . Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe